Category: Running
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Against Inordinate Body Work
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Running as Equalizer?
Top o' the Stack. ……………………… Malcolm Pollack comments: I liked your brief post on running-as-equalizer, and how stubbornly our natural inequalities will always dash our hope of sweeping them under the rug. ("Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.") There's even another natural inequality you didn't touch on,…
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A Quest for Transcendence Gone Wrong
We are spiritual animals in need of spiritual transcendence. It is an illusion of the age to suppose that the transcendence we need can be found by bodily means. Distance running has repaid me richly for the hours and years I devoted to it. In my late twenties I got pretty good at it and…
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Old Mountaineers and Bold Mountaineers
I'm no climber, but I love walking in the mountains. On a solo backpacking adventure in the magnificent Sierra Nevada some years back I overheard a snatch of conversation: There are old mountaineers, and there are bold mountaineers, but there are no old bold mountaineers. Ueli Steck, the great Swiss climber, is dead at 40,…
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On This Date 31 Years Ago and 50 Years Ago: Jim Fixx and Bob Dylan
It was 31 years ago today, during a training run. Running pioneer James F. Fixx, author of the wildly successful The Complete Book of Running, keeled over dead of cardiac arrest. He died with his 'boots' on, and not from running but from a bad heart. It's a good bet that his running added years…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Jim Fixx Remembered
It was 30 years ago tomorrow, during a training run. Running pioneer James F. Fixx, author of the wildly successful The Complete Book of Running, keeled over dead of cardiac arrest. He died with his 'boots' on, and not from running but from a bad heart. It's a good bet that his running added years…
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Nun Run
Some in the habit of running run in a habit. The Poor Clares are sponsoring their 5th annual Desert Nun Run in Tempe on March 8th. Might be fun to run with a nun. And you can vote with your feet against the scumbaggers and bullies of the current administration. The Poor Clares are the…
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The Boston Marathon
Today is Patriot's Day in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the day of the annual running of the Boston Marathon. My mind drifts back to 1980 and Rosie Ruiz who 'won' that year. Boston Billy, I see, has a book out. Here is a post of mine from four years ago on Rodgers. It includes a…
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It’s a Running Argument
Dave Lull points us to The Too-Much-Running Myth Rises Again. Excerpt: (1) One of the major pieces of evidence the group cites is a study that was presented at a conference over the summer. The WSJ description: In a study involving 52,600 people followed for three decades, the runners in the group had a 19% lower…
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Running: Gain, No Pain
No pain to speak of, leastways. And I've been at it over 38 years. Your mileage may vary, as does Malcolm Pollack's who, in his Pain, No Gain, reports: I used to run. I never liked it much, but I did it anyway. I was never fleet of foot, and I never ran very far …
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I Run, Therefore I Think
The atavism and simplicity and cleansing quality of a good hard run are particularly beneficial for Luftmenschen. Paradoxically, the animality of running releases lofty (lüftig) thoughts. Running along the ground one ascends into the aether. Curro, ergo cogito.
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If Boston is Athens, Hopkinton is Marathon
It is Patriot's Day in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the day of the 116th running of the Boston Marathon. It'll be a hot one with a predicted high of 84. The 26.2 miles exact a terrible toll on the mortal coil. Remember Pheidippides! who collapsed at the Athenian end of his run. It may…
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Don’t Say ‘Turkey Day’
Say 'Thanksgiving' and give thanks. You don't need to eat turkey to be thankful. Gratitude is a good old conservative virtue. I'd expatiate further, but I've got a race to run. You guessed it: a 'turkey trot.' In Mesa, Arizona, 10 kilometers = 6.2 miles. With only a couple of exceptions I've run this race…
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The Frank Shorter Story
We who were swept up in the running boom of the 1970s for a lifetime of fitness and satisfaction owe a debt of gratitude to the runners and writers who popularized the sport. The four who stand out most prominently in my memory, 37 summers after I first took to the roads, are the running…
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Fat Ass Runs
That's what they are called, don't blame me. "FAT ASS is the name given to a series of low key runs that are frequented by experienced runners & walkers and characterised by the phrase 'No Fees, No Awards, No Aid, No Wimps.'" More here. Want to join me for Gold Canyon Fat Ass #1?